Last week I bought Beck’s new album, Morning Phase, a sequel of sorts to 2002’s sublime break-up record Sea Change.
Morning Phase has the same somber tone and cry-in-your-beer lyrical style as Sea Change but goes in some different melodic and production directions, with some of its songs reminding me of everything from Simon & Garfunkel to Pink Floyd.
Today we arrive at another of those ‘Oddball’ misfits whose music I enjoy despite the fact that it sounds like nothing else in my collection.
Beck defies categorization not just among my musical preferences but in general. Early in his career, he blended an alternative singer-songwriter style with hip-hop and electronica, but was just as comfortable releasing an acoustic folk album. He followed the kaleidoscopic pastiche of Odelay with the somber mope balladry of Mutations, then shifted gears again with the dance party of Midnite Vultures.
Three albums of the twenty I’m featuring in this series are what I would call heartbreak records. They stem from and focus on the end of a relationship. The first is Beck’s 2002 Sea Change.
This album represented a major stylistic and lyrical shift for Beck, whose previous work blended hip-hop, funk and folk-rock and featured absurdist hipster poetry. Sea Change was a mostly acoustic affair with straightforward lyrics about love and loss. And despite all of the inventive ground-breaking music he’d released to that point, it felt immediately like the best thing he’d ever done.
Beck’s most recent album, 2008’s Modern Guilt, was his last required CD to fulfill his contract with Interscope Records. unlike athletes, who usually play their best when they’re in the final year of a contract (to better their chances of cashing in on the next one), musicians often release an album of filler to get free from the corporate reins.
Beck didn’t go so far as to release an album of B-sides or live performances but Modern Guilt does feel muted and lacking in inspiration. Even so, it received mostly positive reviews and holds together well enough as a collection of songs, just not as an album with a vision or purpose.
Beck returned a year and half after Guero with The Information, an album that received more press for the circumstances of its release than for its music.
The cover art of The Information was a blank page and the CD case contained a sheet of stickers. Fans were encouraged to create their own cover art, with the goal that no two versions of the album would look the same.
On YouTube, Beck released low-budget videos for every one of the songs and encouraged fans to upload their own videos.
Meet Me In Montauk 